L. D'A e Castro Esq.
FIR,
Clerk of Councils,—Hongkong.
Canton 27th March 1862.
Having reference to your reply of the 10th ult to my letter of the 31st January, in which you inform me that the Minutes of the Civil Service Abuses Inquiry having been printed merely for official and private use, my request for a copy upon which to fomed a prosecution for the libel, in said minutes, perpetrated on me by D. R. Culiwell, er Registrar General, and J. Scott, Governor of Victoria Gaol, cannot be complied with-I have the honour to inform you that before I received your answer, a gentleman, to whom a copy of the Minutes had been given for his private use, was so good as to make me a present of it, coupled with no conditions whatever, So that, were I so disposed, it would be quite competent in me to prosecute the Government, through its printer, for the libel us propagated in official and private circles.
Having, however, given full consideration to the circumstances of the case, I have come to the conclusion that the libellers, Scott and Caldwell, had a graver object than my mere annoy ance in view, and that if there is to be a prosecution at all, it must be criminal one, at the instance of the Crown itself;--exrtainly I shall take no further steps in the matter, ---Scott's allegations of any intimacy with the prisoner Shrum Aling being so absurd that I cannot bring myself to believe any reasonable person, having a knowledge of me, can give credence to a single word of it.
I feel certain top that my reputation is so safe in official quarters that I can afford to treat the matter with the fullest scorn; and but for your informing me that the minutes have been printed for private as well as official use, the matter might stand without farther notice. But the time will come, no doubt, when the Minutes in question will be laid before Parliament, and then what may be thought if I take no steps to rebut the ridiculous calumny upon my character?
In this view, I think I am not unreasonable in asking the President and Members of the Council, by whose orders the Minutes containing the libel were printed for official and private use, to print and circulate with the Minutes a Supplement containing the printed correspondence of which I enclose you two copies.
I have &e.
W. TARRANT
P. S. The gentleman who gave me the copy of the minutes spoken of, has since expressed a wish to see it for some private reference; and you will obtige by letting me bave a clean copy to give to him, mie having some private marks which I do not not desire others to see.
CANTON, 27th February, 1862.
The Hon. JOHN SMALE, Esq., M. L. C.-M. F. C.
&o, &o, &o.
Hongkong.
312
SIR, beg leave to address you as Grand Jury of the Colony of Hongkong, and crave your attention to the following narrative. The Executive Council of the Government have recently given publicity to a volume intituled Minutes of Inquiry into Civil Service abuses before the Executive Council, 1860-61, and printed by D. Noronha, Government Printer.
Almost all these minutes refer to an enquiry into an alleged in- timacy between Mr. D. R. Caldwell, late Registrar General and I'ro- tector of Chinese, and one Mah-chow Wong, a Convict undergoing sen- tence of transportation for piracy; the result of the enquiry being a Aruding by the Council that there had been a long and intimate connec- tion between them, and it was of such a character as to render him, (Caldwell,) unfit for the public service, which they recommended his dismissal from.
The enquiry of which this was the result was ordered by His Grace the Duke of Newcastle in compliance with the prayers of certain public bodies in England; and that it would take place after the arrival in Houg- kong of Governor Sir Hercules Robinson, was generally known some time before the Commission of Enquiry was organized. In 1858 there had been a similar Inquiry, and it was because the finding of that Commission was incompatible with the evidence that the public bodies to whom I have referred memorialized the Government, and prayed further investigation. 1 am particular in drawing attention to these premises, in order to show that . R. Caldwell, knowing what was about to occur, had strong reason for desiring to remove from his path every person likely to be able to give evidence of the intimacy which had existed between him and the convicted pirate.
Foremost among such was a Chinese of the name of Shum Ahing- This man had been over thirteen years in constant business connection with the convict --he had built a hong in Hongkong, in which the pirate had a pecuniary and peculiar interest ;-was related to a person at Kup. chee with whom the pirate bad business relations; was so far implicated with the pirate on one of the charges of which he was convicted